General Reading

Adamson, John, 'The Making of the Ancien-Regime Court, 1500-1700'Link opens in a new window, in John Adamson (ed.), The Princely Courts of Europe: Ritual, Politics and Culture under the Ancien Régime: 1500-1750 (London, 2000), pp. 6-41.

Chambers, D.S., (ed. and trans.), Patrons and Artists in the Italian Renaissance (London, 1970) [An important collection of primary sources in translation]

Clark, Leah R., Collecting Art in the Italian Renaissance Court: Objects and Exchanges (Cambridge, 2018)

Cole, Alison, Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts (New York, 2005)

Fantoni, Marcello, Italian Courts and European CultureLink opens in a new window (Amsterdam, 2022)

Hollingsworth, Mary, Patronage in Renaissance Italy from 1400 to the Early Sixteenth Century (London, 1994)

Hollingsworth, Mary, Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Italy (London, 1996)

Hollingsworth, Mary, Princes of the RenaissanceLink opens in a new window (London, 2021)

Marina, Areli, 'Introduction: Lordship ReifiedLink opens in a new window', I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 16 (2013), 363-75

McCall, Timothy, 'Brilliant Bodies: Material Culture and the Adornment of Men in North Italy’s Quattrocento CourtsLink opens in a new window', I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 16 (2013), 445-90

Panizza, Letizia, ed., Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society (London, 2017)

Sparti, Barbara , 'The Function and Status of Dance in the Fifteenth-Century Italian Courts'Link opens in a new window, Dance Research 14 (1996), 42-61.

Ugolini, Paola, The Court and Its Critics: Anti-Court Sentiments in Early Modern ItalyLink opens in a new window (Toronto, 2020)

Welch, Evelyn, Art and Society in Italy 1350-1500 (Oxford, 1997)

Bologna

Clarke, Georgia, 'Magnificence and the city: Giovanni II Bentivoglio and architecture in fifteenth-century Bologna', Renaissance Studies 13 (1999), 397–411.

Manca, Joseph, 'Ercole de' Roberti's Garganelli Chapel Frescoes: A Reconstruction and Analysis'Link opens in a new window, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 49.2 (1986), 147-64.

Wallace, William E., 'The Bentivoglio Palace Lost and Reconstructed'Link opens in a new window, Sixteenth Century Journal 10.3 (1979), 97-114.

Warren, Jeremy, 'Francesco Francia and the Art of Sculpture in Renaissance Bologna'Link opens in a new window, The Burlington Magazine 141 (1999), 216-25.

Ferrara

Dean, Trevor, ‘Notes on the Ferrarese Court in the Later Middle Ages’, Renaissance Studies 3.4 (1989), 357–69.

Dean, Trevor, Land and Power in Late Medieval Ferrara: The Rule of the Este, 1350-1450 (Cambridge, 1988)

Ghirardo, Diane Yvonne, ‘The Topography of Prostitution in Renaissance Ferrara’Link opens in a new window, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 60.4 (2001), 402-31. JSTOR

Gundersheimer, W.L., Ferrara: the style of a Renaissance despotism.

Hollingsworth, Mary, The Cardinal’s Hat: Money, Ambition and Housekeeping in a Renaissance court (London, 2004)

Looney, Dennis, and Deanna Shemek, Phaethon's children: the Este court and its culture in early modern Ferrara (Tempe, 2005)

Manca, Joseph, ‘The Presentation of a Renaissance Lord: Portraiture of Ercole I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara (1471-1505)’Link opens in a new window, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 52.4 (1989), 522-38.

Manca, Joseph, 'Style, Clarity, and Artistic Production in a Courtly Center: Some Myths about Ferrarese Painting of the Quattrocento'Link opens in a new window, Artibus et Historiae 22 no. 43 (2001), 55-63.

Prizer, William F., 'Isabella d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia as Patrons of Music: The Frottola at Mantua and Ferrara'Link opens in a new window, Journal of the American Musicological Society 38.1 (1985), 1-33.

Rosenberg, Charles M. ‘In the Footsteps of the Prince: A Look at Renaissance FerraraLink opens in a new window’, Nexus Network Journal 1.1 (1999), 43-64.

Tuohy, Thomas, Herculean Ferrara: Ercole d’Este, 1471-1505, and the Invention of a Ducal Capital (Cambridge, 1996)

Mantua

Bourne, Molly, 'Art and Culture in Renaissance Mantua: IntroductionLink opens in a new window', Renaissance Studies 16/3 (2002), 303-305. Blackwell

Brown, Clifford M., and Anna Maria Lorenzoni, '"Concludo che non vidi mai la più bella casa in Italia": The Frescoed Decorations in Francesco II Gonzaga's Suburban Villa in the Mantuan Countryside at Gonzaga (1491-1496)Link opens in a new window ', Renaissance Quarterly 49/2 (1996), 268-302.

Brown, Clifford Malcolm, Isabella d'Este in the Ducal Palace in Mantua (Rome, 2005)

Cashman, Anthony B., III, ‘The problem of audience in Mantua: understanding ritual efficacy in an Italian Renaissance princely state’Link opens in a new window, Renaissance Studies 16.3 (2002), 355–365.

Chambers, D.S., and J. Martineau (eds.), Splendours of the Gonzaga.

Cockram, Sarah D. P., Isabella d'Este and Francesco Gonzaga: Power sharing at the Italian Renaissance Court (Farnham, 2013)

Fenlon, I., Music and Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Mantua.

Fenlon, Iain, ‘Music and Spectacle at the Gonzaga Court, c. 1580-1600’Link opens in a new window, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 103 (1976-1977), 90-105.

Lazzarini, Isabella, 'Sub Signo Principis. Political institutions and urban configurations in early Renaissance Mantua'Link opens in a new window, Renaissance Studies 16.3 (2002), 318–29. Blackwell

Maurer, Maria F., Gender, Space and Experience at the Renaissance Court: Performance and Practice at the Palazzo TeLink opens in a new window (Amsterdam, 2019)

Maurer, Maria F., 'A love that burns: Eroticism, torment and identity at the Palazzo TeLink opens in a new window', Renaissance Studies 30/3 (2016), 370–88

Prizer, William F., 'Isabella d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia as Patrons of Music: The Frottola at Mantua and Ferrara'Link opens in a new window, Journal of the American Musicological Society 38.1 (1985), 1-33.

Prizer, William F., 'Una "Virtù Molto Conveniente A Madonne": Isabella D'Este as a Musician'Link opens in a new window, The Journal of Musicology 17.1 (1999), pp. 10-49.

Sanders, Donald C., Music at the Gonzaga Court in Mantua (Lanham, MD, 2012)

San Juan, Rose Marie, 'The Court Lady's Dilemma: Isabella d'Este and Art Collecting in the Renaissance'Link opens in a new window, Oxford Art Journal 14.1 (1991), 67-78.

Shaw, Christine, Isabella d'Este: A Renaissance Princess (London, 2019)

Welch, Evelyn Samuels, ‘The art of expenditure: the court of Paola Malatesta Gonzaga in fifteenth-century Mantua’Link opens in a new window, Renaissance Studies 16.3 (2002), 306–17. Blackwell

Milan

Lubkin, Gregory, A Renaissance Court: Milan Under Galeazzo Maria SforzaLink opens in a new window (Berkeley, 1994)

Malaguzzi-Valeri, F., La corte di Ludovico Sforza.

Syson, Luke, 'Zanetto Bugatto, Court Portraitist in Sforza Milan'Link opens in a new window, The Burlington Magazine 138 (1996), 300-08.

Welch, Evelyn Samuels, 'Galeazzo Maria Sforza and the Castello di Pavia, 1469'Link opens in a new window, The Art Bulletin 71.3 (1989), 352-75.

Welch, Evelyn Samuels, ‘The Image of a Fifteenth-Century Court: Secular Frescoes for the Castello di Porta Giovia, Milan’Link opens in a new window, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 53 (1990), 163-84.

Welch, Evelyn Samuels, 'Sight, Sound and Ceremony in the Chapel of Galeazzo Maria Sforza'Link opens in a new window, Early Music History 12 (1993), 151-90.

Urbino

Clough, Cecil H., ‘Art as Power in the Decoration of the Study of an Italian Renaissance Prince: The Case of Federico Da Montefeltro’Link opens in a new window, Artibus et Historiae 16 issue 31 (1995), 19-50.

Clough, C.H., The Duchy of Urbino in the Renaissance.

Clough, Cecil H., ‘Federigo da Montefeltro’s Patronage of the Arts, 1468-1482’Link opens in a new window, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973), 129-44.

Clough, C. H., 'Federigo da Montefeltro: The Good Christian Prince' Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 67/1 (1984), 293-348

Falvo, Joseph D., ‘Urbino and the Apotheosis of Power’Link opens in a new window, MLN 101 (1986), 114-46.

Hofmann, Heinz, 'Literary Culture at the Court of Urbino during the Reign of Federico da Montefeltro', Humanistica Lovaniensia 57 (2008): 5–59.